by Louisa Luna
“So,” Cap announced, bringing his palms together in a soft clap. “No learner’s permit, right, and no entry into the car in the past couple of weeks, correct?”
Logan stared at him blankly.
“If that’s true, Logan, could you say, ‘correct’? For the video, you know?” said Cap.
Logan rolled his eyes. “Correct.”
“Right. So when the labs come back with the fingerprint results, yours won’t be on the driver’s side door for any reason. Or on the power door lock inside,” Cap said, standing.
Logan sat up quickly, suddenly at attention.
“Guess we’re done then, folks,” said Cap.
“Wait.”
Logan stood, panic lighting his eye. “Don’t go yet.”
Tamsin rushed to her son and grabbed his elbow, said, “What are you talking about?” The panic had spread to her now, and Duffy too, who came off the bookcase and stood behind his wife.
“Let me—” Logan began, shaking his mother off. He stood there and breathed heavily.
“If you have anything to add, Logan,” Cap said, “this would be the best time. Because down the line, there’ll be cops and lawyers and reporters all talking at once. It’ll be harder to hear you.”
As Cap spoke, Logan started touching his face, eyebrows and lips twitching. Tamsin’s nostrils flared as she crossed her arms aggressively. Duffy placed a hand on her shoulder, and she wriggled out from under it. Vega was the only one in the room not standing or moving around. She held the phone calmly, watching the red dot and the seconds creep by as the video continued to run.
“The guy told me he just needed the car for a day,” said Logan finally.
“You sonofabitch,” Tamsin said, and she lunged at him.
Duffy caught her in a bear hug from behind.
“What guy?” said Cap, ignoring her. He approached Logan quickly, pointed a finger at his chest. “Speak fast and accurate, Logan. I don’t have my partner here because she’s good with a smartphone. She will get the truth out of you if she has to remove every one of your teeth to do it.”
Logan, Tamsin, and Duffy gaped at Vega and seemed to notice her for the first time, their faces filled with a mix of shock and wonder.
Vega tapped the phone to stop the recording and dropped it into her pocket, as they all watched her every move, even Cap with a soft brow and curves around his mouth, giving up the game face just for her. She stared back at all of them and didn’t smile though her eyes were bright and engaged as if to say, It’s true, it’s all true.
* * *
—
Vega powered her window down as she thought and waited for Cap. She squeezed a dime between her thumb and forefinger. It almost felt like it could split from the pressure. She thought about the rush of information that had spilled out of Logan Duffy’s snotty mouth and tried to make it all fit in her head. She pinched the dime harder, until the tip of her thumb was numb, and the torch and branches had made a little imprint on her skin, and then she flipped it into the cup holder. Cap came out of the Dunkin’ Donuts. He squinted in the sunlight and got into the car.
“You’re sure you don’t want anything?” he said, buckling his seatbelt. “I can go back in.”
“No thanks,” said Vega.
“You talk to Otero?”
“Sent him an email.”
“You want to wait to hear from him before we move forward?”
“Why would I do that?” said Vega.
Cap smirked. “I don’t know, he’s sort of your boss.”
“I’m not waiting for him to get back from lunch or the dry cleaner to call me.”
“Got it,” Cap said. He was quiet for a minute while he sipped his coffee. “Just saying, now we’re talking about drugs, we’re talking about dealers…If I was working for, say, a state or federal law enforcement agency, I would think that’s the kind of thing they like to be updated on.”
Vega shrugged both shoulders back, bristling.
“You’re my consultant, remember?” she said, looking in the rearview.
“Absolutely,” said Cap. “I look forward to my 1099.”
“They hired me to do this my way.”
“Of course.”
“That is how I’m doing it.”
“Yes, and I am consulting you.”
Vega nodded, and Cap grinned dumbly at her. She took out her phone and began to text.
“So,” Cap said, taking a gusty breath. “What’s the best way to catch a dealer?”
Vega showed him her phone. He read, “I am a friend of Logan Duffy. Need supplies.”
Cap answered his own question then: “Buy whatever he’s selling.”
Vega put her sunglasses on and pulled out of the parking space. “I knew I hired you for a reason,” she said quietly, without humor.
Cap laughed, put a fist over his mouth to stop coffee from spraying.
“Vega, do you know something?”
She nodded at him, indicating he should speak.
“I missed you.”
She punched the gas and muttered, “Fuck off.”
* * *
—
The dealer’s house was narrow, Cap figured not more than fifteen feet wide, one-story with bars on the two front windows and door. The street was full of houses like that, built like railroad apartments stretching back on the dirt lots as opposed to toppling row houses on concrete like in Denville. Vega parked across the street from the dealer’s house.
“I’m going in alone,” she said, taking off her sunglasses and looking at her eyes in the mirror.
“Come on,” said Cap.
She wasn’t sure if he was protesting because he was worried about her or if he didn’t want to miss anything. Either way she found it foolish.
“It’s conceivable that someone who looks like me would want to buy drugs,” she said. “You look like you’re going to a PTA meeting.”
Cap snapped his seatbelt off. “First,” he said, “heroin, meth, yes, I agree, but this guy sells high-end hallucinogens and sedatives, which I could conceivably be into—I could pass for an old hippie.”
“Not Rohypnol,” Vega countered. “No way you are roofieing yourself or others.”
Cap flipped his visor mirror down and glanced at his reflection. He ran his fingertips through the little black and gray curls above his ears. Below, on the sides, he was cutting it shorter than before, Vega noticed. The gray glinted in the light.
“Okay,” he conceded. “I will wait here, available for consult whenever you need me. Do you want to come up with a signal, something to let me know if you need help?”
Vega slipped her jacket off, then removed her shoulder holster and placed it on the dash. She pulled the band from her hair, which fell to her shoulders in stiff waves. Then, two bobby pins from the hair behind her ears. She dropped all the accessories into the cup holder tray.
“You’re not bringing the Springfield?” said Cap in disbelief.
“Don’t need it,” said Vega, getting out of the car. “He’s a club dealer. Was probably a weed dealer until it became legal. Just sells to stoners, party boys. No hard stuff, like you said.”
She shut the door, and Cap leaned across the driver’s seat so she would hear him.
“Party boys who stole a car where a girl turned up dead,” said Cap.
Vega shrugged, not concerned.
“Thirty minutes,” she said. “Thirty minutes, I’m not out, I don’t text, you take what’s in the trunk and come and get me.”
She began to walk away. Cap leaned further so his head was at the window.
“What’s in the trunk?” he called.
“Don’t look in there unless you need to,” she said.
He retreated from the window and sat back in his seat.
“Snea
ky,” he said out loud, but she didn’t hear, already on the curb on the other side.
He watched her go. Without her jacket, he could make out more of the shape of her body than he usually could, especially her ass in the fitted black pants she always wore. Stop looking at her ass, he said to himself halfheartedly. But he didn’t. He looked at it, and it was a goddamn perfect thing.
* * *
—
Vega rang the buzzer, then knocked softly. She heard music inside, hip-hop. The door opened, and there was a guy in his twenties with brown hair in a messy bun on his head, wearing board shorts and no shirt.
“Hey, I’m Alice,” said Vega, pushing her voice up to a higher register.
“Well, hey, Alice, I’m Corey.”
He opened the door for her, and she came inside. It smelled like weed, incense, maple syrup.
“You want to sit down?” he said, gesturing to a navy blue velvet couch.
“Sure,” said Vega.
She sat and took a quick visual inventory of the room: a barrel-shaped brass table in front of her with one ashtray on top. A stool covered in some kind of shaggy-dog fabric. 2001 movie poster on the wall. Thick beige shades over the windows letting in a couple of inches’ worth of light, giving the room a gauzy, underwater feel.
“You a friend of Duffy’s?” Corey said, a hint of doubt in his tone.
“Yeah,” said Vega, twisting her hands in her lap.
“So how do you know him again?”
Vega examined his face to gauge his gullibility. He was still being casual but not hiding his skepticism. Fake crooked smile, eyes narrow but alert. Chill bro, but he’s watching every move for a misstep.
“It’s a little complicated,” said Vega shyly, brushing hair away from her face.
“Yeah?” said Corey. “I like complicated.”
Tell him just enough to make him believe you, she thought.
“I’m his, uh,” Vega started, letting her eyes roll up to the ceiling. “His English teacher.”
Corey’s mouth bloomed into a smile.
“No shit,” he said, charmed.
Vega shrugged, held her breath to force a blush onto her cheeks.
“I get it, I get it,” he said. “Duffy didn’t do his homework because he’s partying too much, and you talk to him and say, ‘Fuck it.’ ”
“Something like that,” said Vega.
Corey laughed.
“Ah, I love it,” he said genuinely. “Miss Alice, all right,” he said, a little flirty. Just seemed to notice she was female.
There you go, Vega said to herself. Now you got him.
She shrugged again and laughed. “That’s me.”
* * *
—
Cap checked his phone. She’d been in there five minutes. No need to worry. He’d been so distracted by her ass he hadn’t really considered what she’d said about the trunk. Last time she’d hid something in the trunk it was a guy Cap had been hired to find and couldn’t. It had taken Vega about a minute to locate him and drop him into her trunk hog-tied with an apple stuck in his mouth.
This was not the case now, of course. Spare magazines, an extra firearm or two was his guess. One way to find out.
He leaned over to the driver’s side, found the button for the trunk, and pressed it with his thumb. It pushed back with some resistance, felt like the mechanism had not been triggered. No pop, no sign of the trunk rising open in the rearview. Cap pressed the button again, for a few seconds this time, and still, nothing.
He got out of the car and went around to the trunk, which was definitely not open. He squeezed the latch but it didn’t click or give. Looks like your trunk’s busted, girl, he thought. He turned around and leaned back on it, closed his eyes in the sun.
He tried to remember her ass in the black pants but instead the picture that kept coming back was the sculpt and contour of her white shoulders in the dim light of the hotel room.
* * *
—
Corey had laid out the options for sale on the barrel-shaped table. There were sealed foil blister packs, miniature Ziplocs, and a small red lacquer suitcase lined with a gunmetal foam, all containing pills, white and yellow and green, round and oval, imprinted with numbers and letters and happy faces, none bigger than a quarter.
“What’s the difference between the green and white roofies?” Vega asked, turning a foil pack around in her hand.
“White’s the older model,” said Corey. “I mean, they still work, just dissolve quicker than the green.” He picked up a small baggie filled with bright blue tablets. “These are really fun,” he said, handing them to Vega. “They’re like regular ex but in the last hour or so instead of winding down you get a little jump. It’s like, what do you call that,” he said, squinting, trying to remember something. “Time-release.”
Vega nodded and grinned stupidly, still pretending to be a bougie high school teacher outside her comfort zone. She studied Corey’s upper body—he was fit but not blasted. Flat stomach but no six-pack, muscle tone in his arms from bench pressing in the backyard or surfing. Maybe a few too many tacos after bong hits.
Vega took the baggie from him and fumbled with it, letting it fall from her hands to the floor.
“Sorry,” she said, grabbing it. “I’m just a little nervous.”
“That’s cool,” said Corey, smiling, showing his straight white teeth.
Teeth told her everything. His meant he grew up cushy, twice a year cleanings, braces.
“Do you, uh, do you have any pot we could smoke?” she asked tentatively. “I’ll pay for it, of course,” she quickly added.
Corey let out a shout of laughter. Either he found her endearing or thought she was attractive or both.
“Hell yeah,” he said. “You don’t have to pay me, though. I’ll totally smoke a bowl with you.”
He stood up and headed out of the room, flip-flops slapping the parquet floor. Before leaving the room he turned back to her and said, “You’re a secret party girl, Alice.”
Vega shrugged and tried her best to smile awkwardly, stretching her lips up and off her teeth as far as they would go.
As soon as he was gone, Vega took her phone from her pocket and texted Cap:
“Everything is fine.”
She set the phone screen-down on the table and looked at the ashtray. It wasn’t big but it was glass, amber in color. JERRY’S NUGGET—LAS VEGAS printed on the bottom.
Her phone hummed with a text from Cap: “U sure?”
She texted back: “Yes.”
“You get some good news?” said Corey, returning.
She put the phone back in her pocket and shook her head.
“Boyfriend?” said Corey, teasing her. “Or just a crush.”
Vega did her best to giggle.
“No, nothing like that.”
Corey sat on the shaggy stool. He held a pipe in one hand and a baggie of weed in the other.
“If you say so,” he said as he began to pack the pipe.
“Is this stuff strong?” Vega asked.
“Not the strongest, but not the weakest either,” he said. “It’ll get you where you need to go. A buddy of mine works at MedMen. They give them a discount. It’s like working at the damn Gap now,” he said, laughing at his own joke. “Okay, little lady, try this. I’m-a light it for you.”
He passed the pipe to her, and she pushed back gently on his wrist.
“Would you mind taking the first hit?” she said. “I haven’t smoked for a while, and I just want to watch you. You know, like a tutorial?”
Corey laughed again. “You’re funny,” he announced. “I might have done better in school if I had a teacher like you. If you insist, okay.”
He brought the pipe to his mouth and lit the bowl with a lighter in his other hand. He took a long drag
, the herb glowing and crackling, a thin trail of smoke burning off the top. He took the pipe out of his mouth and held his breath, pointing to his face.
Vega nodded encouragingly.
“Hold it as long as you can?” she said.
He nodded, then finally exhaled, coughing once at the end. The smoke filled the air, mostly sweet, a little skunky.
“You want to hold it as far down in your lungs as you can,” he said, his voice raw. “You don’t want to hold it here,” he said pointing to his neck. “You can really burn your throat. Ready?”
“I think so,” said Vega.
He gave her the pipe and she put her lips over the mouthpiece. It was warm and a little wet. Corey reached over and lit the bowl, and she inhaled but not deeply, felt the smoke hit her throat and blew it back out. She made a big show of it too, coughing and sputtering.
Corey laughed, truly amused. “You did exactly what I told you not to do!”
“I know!” Vega said, laughing. “Could you, maybe, show me one more time?”
“Yeah, yeah, hand it over.”
She gave the pipe back to him and watched him take a big drag again, watched his eyes get a little dimmer, his movements get a little slower. Then back and forth twice more, each time Vega coughing up most of the smoke and Corey laughing, taking hearty drags.
“Logan’s failing my class,” Vega announced, her throat coarse from catching the smoke.
Corey grinned, tapped the pipe on the ashtray, and shook out the cashed bowl.
“Yeah, he never seemed too smart,” he said.
“He’s not as dumb as you think,” said Vega.
“Whatever you say, Miss Alice.”
“He knows when to talk and when to shut up,” said Vega, leaning forward.
“Yeah?” said Corey absentmindedly.
He appeared to be only half-listening, cleaning out the pipe with his pinkie, looking through it with one eye like a telescope.
“Yeah,” said Vega, standing.